


The One Where John Gets a Tattoo

by Tesserae



Category: SGA - Fandom
Genre: Episode Tag, Established Relationship, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-03
Updated: 2006-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:53:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a tattoo. No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where John Gets a Tattoo

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, and not Yin's either, or I'm sure she'd let me share. This was intended to be comment fic for [](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/profile)[**yin_again**](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/)'s [Five Things Meme](http://yin-again.livejournal.com/345751.html#cutid1), from a suggestion that I needed to write my own tattoo story. I live in L.A. – I can do tattoos.

"Oh my _god_." There is awe and something else in Rodney's voice as he slides John's BDUs over his hips in one smooth movement, and John takes a moment to award himself a point before it sinks in that the _something else_ is actually horrified amusement. "How drunk _ were_ you when you did this?"

"Um. Well." John props himself up on his elbows and looks down at Rodney, who is sitting back on his heels, his hand hovering over John's left hip. His mouth is canted off to the left and there's a light in his eyes that John knows only too well from spending hours in the lab being ordered to "Just touch it, Colonel, is that that too much to ask?" (Even after they started sleeping together, he never told Rodney that he'd heard that phrase for in his dreams for a solid week, and as a consequence almost _didn't_ kiss him when the opportunity presented itself.)

And, of course, it's not _Ancient_ equipment he'd hoped to be handling his first night back on Atlantis after spending three weeks arguing about carbon copies at Stargate Command. They hadn't been happy with his filing system, it seemed. Colonel Mitchell had a better one, and got assigned to teach it to John. Neither John nor Colonel Mitchell had been happy with that state of affairs until they discovered a bar that showed old football games on DVD twenty-four hours a day, and Colonel Mitchell confided to John that the secret to filing was hiring someone who actually liked doing it.

And now Rodney, it seems, isn't too happy with his new tattoo. John suspects it's going to take more than the chocolate he's still got stashed in his backpack to talk him around, and he panics for a moment, wondering if the silver dollar-sized graphic he's now got nestled between his hip and the crease of his thigh is more than Rodney will be able to – well, there's no _overlooking_ a tattoo in your partner's crotch, is there?

Rodney's eyes haven't left the tattoo. Feeling suddenly exposed, John tries to scoot back toward the head of the bed, away from that penetrating blue gaze. Rodney stops him with a careful touch, sliding his hand around John's waist and cupping his hipbone with one blunt thumb, the tattoo dark and startlingly vulnerable against Rodney's pale skin.

"It looks like it hurts," Rodney says, holding him still. "Let me look at it." Slowly, delicately, he traces the lines of black ink curling over John's skin. John rolls his hips, his cock lengthening as Rodney's hands whisper over his belly. Rodney glances up at him, grinning.

"Ok, not so painful, then."

John blushes, and Rodney resumes his exploration, concentrating, walking his fingers over the tattoo as if it were labyrinth, before sitting back and resting his hands on his thighs. "What is it?" he asks.

John is not quite ready to answer that question. "It's just a tattoo, Rodney. Can we just, uh – " he waves a hand between them, indicating his erection, and pouting a bit, which sometimes works. "You know – three weeks, SGC, General Landry, Daniel _fucking_ Jackson - and did I mention the three weeks?"

"Mmm hmmm," Rodney says, eyes gleaming. "Don't try to change the subject, _Colonel_. Tell me what it is – and how drunk you were - or I'll photograph this while you're sleeping and upload it as a screen saver."

John gapes at him. "You wouldn't – "

"I totally would, and you know it. Now, spill."

John drops his head back onto the pillow, thinking _Distract, distract_, a little desperately. Maybe he could think a crisis into some other part of the city – except that would mean he'd _never_ get off, and it wouldn't be fair to Zelenka, who'd looked at him suspiciously the last time he'd tried disabling the city's sensors.

"I don't think we were _that_ drunk," he starts. "Teal'c doesn't drink, I don't think –"

"Teal'c?"

"Yeah – big guy, little swirly thing on his – "

"I know who Teal'c is, asshole. Did he get a tattoo, too?"

"No, Colonel Mitchell _wanted_ him to, but – "

"Colonel Mitchell?"

John bites back a grin. "Yeah, tall guy – "

"Oh, knock it off. Look - " He's starting to sound annoyed. Belatedly, John remembers that Rodney knows SGC far better than he does, and can probably get a version of the story out of someone that will be even less flattering than the truth.

"Rodney. It was – "

The logical way to finish that sentence is _Nothing, really_, but it's not true, and John suspects that Rodney will figure that out. He starts again, in a slightly different place.

"It was just – one of those things. Last night on Earth, a couple too many beers – we found the coolest place, Rodney, this sports bar – "

"Yeah, I know, football 27 hours a day, hello, _Canadian_, can we get on with the story, please?" Rodney sticks his chin out and restrains himself from crossing his arms, perhaps remembering that he's naked. John waits until the chin comes back down, and puts on his most sincere face.

"Yes, well. So. Cam said – " Rodney opens his mouth. John shakes his head. " - that everybody on the Stargate teams has to get them," he said firmly.

Biting his lip, Rodney gestures to John to keep going.

"Cam also said that General O'Neill used to pay for them, but – " he starts to add, and Rodney explodes.

"And you _believed_ him? Jesus, I know I _work_ with morons, but I hoped I wasn't sleeping with one!" He looks genuinely horrified, and John waits for a full thirty seconds before tackling him, maneuvering him onto his back and straddling one muscular thigh. He thrusts his hips into Rodney's as lewdly as possible, and adds the puppy dog eyes for good measure.

Rodney blinks at him and starts to laugh, the deep belly laugh that even John rarely gets to see. When they can both breathe again, Rodney leans in for a quick kiss and then pulls back. His eyes are intent, serious.

"Okay, you're not a moron. I get that…" Rodney's voice trails off and he clears his throat. "Now will you just _please_ tell me about this?" he finishes, sounding tentative. John's heart clenches. He knew he'd be telling the story, had been practicing different versions of it on the Daedalus while they ran drills and waited to drop out of hyperspace over Atlantis. In the end, he'd decided to go with the unvarnished truth, crossing his fingers and hoping that it wasn't going to be _too much, too fast_ for this new thing of theirs to carry.

"It's not much of a story," he says, rolling off Rodney's belly onto his side, propping his head on one hand and spreading the fingers of his other hand over Rodney's ribs, trying to feel his heart. "It really was 'last night, too many beers' – but I'd been thinking about it for a while, and I kinda knew what I wanted." He stops, forcing himself to hold Rodney's eyes and not put up his own version of the city's shields.

Rodney slides his hand down over John's waist, covering the tattoo with the palm of his hand and pressing lightly. "So it means something."

"Yeah. It's – do you remember The Fifteen?"

Rodney squints at him. "Kolya – the ZPM – more damned Amish – yes, of course, why?"

"Do you remember how we got the ZPM out of the wall?"

Rodney's eyes blaze and John can _see_ the connection being made. "The _fifteen_," he murmurs. "You solved the puzzle, but – " he tightens his hand over the circle of the tattoo. "This says fifteen?" and John nods, slowly.

"In what, Amish?"

John snorts and smacks him gently. "No, _idiot_," he says fondly. "In Cambodian."

"Cambodian."

He nods again, firmly. "Yep."

Rodney stares at him. John fixes his smile in place and waits. Finally, Rodney lifts one eyebrow and shakes his head.

"Okay, you win," he says grudgingly, and gets treated to a huge grin.

"I had the guy do it in Cambodian so Cam wouldn't know what it said."

Rodney continues to stare at him for a long moment, and then lifts his hand to John's forehead.

"Well, you're not running a fever," he says, his tone conversational but his eyes dark with concern. "And I hacked the Daedalus' logs – there weren't any weird energy spikes while you were in transit." He pushes John over onto his back and presses his fingers against John's wrist. "Your pulse feels a little fast."

John opens his eyes, confused. Of course his pulse is fast, they're in bed naked, for god's sake. Although they might have been sitting in Elizabeth's office for all the good _bed_ was going to do him. He rolls Rodney over and straddles him.

"Rodney," he says firmly. "I'm fine. The tat's in Cambodian so that nobody but _us_ would knows what it means. Cam got his in Egyptian and I figure Daniel Jackson's the only one who can read that and _wow_ is that too much information or what?"

"Yes," Rodney answers absently. He still looks like he's trying to figure out how to break John's hold and haul him off to the infirmary. "But - _why fifteen_?"

"Oh, yeah." This time, the blush starts in his cheeks and spreads down his neck onto his chest. John ducks his head and says in the direction of Rodney's belly, as fast as he can, "Fifteenbecausethatwasthefirsttimeyoureallynoticed*me*."

"WHAT? I noticed you the minute you sat down in that damned chair!" Rodney's voice is tight, angry. "I notice you every time we walk through the 'Gate!"

John shakes his head. "No. That's - that was the gene, Rodney. You saw the gene, first, and then you saw the job. Not me – not until Planet Whateverthefuck. Remember?" John remembers. He'll remember those numbers till the day he dies, the feeling of cold bleeding up from his fingertips as he fought a strong urge to just throw the tablets into the thing and get the fuck out of there, the flash of clarity when the numbers resolved themselves into the magic square, 15, 15, 15, 15 until the wall opened and Rodney's precious ZPM slid out.

He'd worked on the design for the tattoo in meetings and late at night in his quarters at SGC, doodling, wishing his cheap ballpoint pen was fine enough for fractals and then abandoning that thought when the tattoo artist turned out to be Cambodian. "Can you do this?" he asked, pulling that day's sketch out of his wallet and tugging his shirt up, pointing at his belly. "Yeah," the guy had said, "but I got a suggestion." He re-drew the numbers, turning them into a curly backwards C and something that looked like a canted U with a single wing. He liked it, and when the guy changed the size, too, making it both smaller and stronger, he didn't ask why.

Some explanations, he figures, he's just not meant to have, like how come _saving his life_ didn't register for Rodney but arithmetic did. Both of those things are about results, but for whatever reason, _fifteen_ brought him Rodney where the other didn't. So he'd put the number into his skin, right where Rodney's hands grip him when they're fucking, and where it wouldn't show unless he was surfing in his oldest shorts, the ones that always slid down his narrow hips. He hopes Rodney likes the tat, or at least doesn't mind that it's there.

When Rodney slides his hands free and runs them down John's back to stop at his hips, he begins to think that Rodney will be at least _okay_ with the body art. When Rodney pushes him back onto the bed and leans in to touch the tip of his tongue to the ink, tracing the path his fingertips had followed earlier, John is pretty sure. Rodney is panting and his eyes are bright when he finally sits back, and he is hard, as hard as John, the tip of his cock gleaming with moisture.

John looks pointedly at Rodney's erection and lifts one eyebrow. "So – you're cool with this?"

Rodney huffs and waves a hand toward John's belly. "It's – " he begins, his voice hoarse, exasperation sounding like it's losing out to raw arousal.

" – cool, right?" John finishes for him, spreading his legs a bit, and lifting his hips.

Rodney closes his eyes and groans. "Sexiest fucking thing I have _ever_ seen - how do you do that? How is it possible – I have never seen a tattoo on someone without wanting to run a hundred miles in the other direction and you – you show up with this – " another hand wave, less coherent this time – "and I just want to eat it off you." He stops short, opens his eyes and gives John a quizzical look. "Ok, that was gross. But – "

"Rodney. Focus."

"On what? All I can see is that damned tattoo!" Rodney yells, and John answers him by pulling him down into a fierce embrace, and by kissing him until they are breathless and sweating, and until his hand on both their cocks has brought them to the edge of orgasm.

"On me," John says then, pushing himself up and dragging Rodney's gaze down between them, to the head of his own cock, slick with precome, pushing into John's hand, riding against the black brand of the tattoo on John's belly. "On us," he gasps, tightening his grip, feeling the pounding of Rodney's blood and his own in his ears, in the skin of his hands and his thighs and his belly as he strokes down hard and then drags his hand up their shafts, down and back up a second time before Rodney's hips lose their rhythm completely and he is coming in a hot rush of fluid over John's fist. Another stroke, another one, his hand wet from both of them and Rodney's cock still half-hard next to his and his own orgasm takes him, dropping him boneless and quivering onto the sweat-slick skin of Rodney's chest, overwhelmed by the sound of his heart.

Rodney gives him a minute and then pushes at him, shifting John's head onto his shoulder so that he can breathe. John tightens his arm around Rodney's waist and fights the suddenly intense desire to sleep for the next three days. Rodney never minds if he does – sleep, that is – but he wants to be sure that sleeping won't be followed by another fight.

"Are we cool?" he asks when the words start filtering back.

He's answered by a soft chuckle. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times – "

"Rodney – "

There's no response for a moment, but then he feels Rodney's big square hand settle over his hip, the tattoo centered within his palm, and Rodney's mouth settle over his own, confident and warm, his lips the softest John's ever known. He pulls back and asks again, this time watching Rodney's eyes, guileless and very blue: "Are we?"

Rodney nods, finally, and gives him a crooked grin. "We are fine. Only – if I get a tattoo, will I be cool too?"

If he had the energy to smack him, John would, but he settles for dropping back into the kiss. He can smack Rodney tomorrow – by then, he'll surely have another reason.

 

End

 

 

 

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End file.
